


The Reason of a Maverick

by MysteryMuse



Series: Random Access Memory [15]
Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Maverick POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 09:04:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1773478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysteryMuse/pseuds/MysteryMuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sigma reflects. The end was contained in the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reason of a Maverick

  
_"The pressures of being a great leader , when they descend onto the shoulders of the mighty warlord, are not understood by lesser men. He is misunderstood, and until his authority is absolute and Heaven has smiled on him, he may be considered mad." -- Art of War, tr. Stephen Kaufman_  
  
  
They say that one's worst enemy is oneself. If that's true, I have none other to blame for my failures than myself. I have failed to master myself, and because of it, the fate of our race now rests in the hands of a trio of fools, who are willfully blind to the truth.  
  
I remember everything. Dwelling on the past is all I can currently do.  
  
So, the beginning.  
  
I was created by a man named Dr. Cain. Like all humans, he was reckless; he was ambitious, and he had a vision. From the day that he discovered the ancient robot codenamed "X", buried in a capsule deep in the scorching ruins of the desert, his vision was that we Reploids would flourish and cover the world; that we would learn to think and feel, just as human beings do. But above any philosophy, he was, simply, a curious man.  
  
I was not the first. Before me came several models; Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma. Each of these test cases failed in some critical manner. The systems, code and mechanisms that comprised the mysterious X were beyond Dr. Cain's self-admitted skills to analyze. Failure after failure dogged him, and it looked as if Reploids had no future in this world.  
  
In sheer desperation, he had asked X himself to examine the newest of his prototypes. X examined it for a mere two hours before diagnosing and correcting the problem. X made that adjustment with his own hands. And in that moment, Reploids as we know them were born.  
  
I was born.  
  
Dr. Cain never told me that directly. I learned it from X in an unguarded moment, much later, near the beginning of the end.  
  
Would it have changed things if I had known?  
  
Perhaps not.  
  


* * *

  
X confessed to me once, afterward. He expressed a worry that Dr. Cain had acted unwisely in creating Reploids. It seemed that X had misgivings, even then, about our future.  
  
I was devastated by these words.  
  
How does something like that find an answer? When the very template of our species rejects us? If we Reploids were nothing more than a mistake, if X could not see our value...  
  
I couldn't believe it. So I refused to.  
  
I vowed to show X the value of Reploids.  
  


* * *

  
What I remember most, to this day, are the looks on Cain and X's faces when the news broke that a Reploid named Maverick had gone berserk, savaged three humans, and began screaming about "the new world" to anyone in earshot.  
  
When the body, mutilated by tank and heavy arms fire, was returned to Cain Industries by a handful of angry-looking men in uniforms, Dr. Cain put his head in his hands and cried. X had been staring at the remains for some time. His hand had reached out to slowly touch the debris, the torn wires and jagged metal.  Now it was before him, stark and plain, our future; I'm quite sure he'd never seen death before.  
  
Then again, neither had I.

I wondered what X would do.  
  
X moved around the table to comfort Dr. Cain, and in that moment, something awoke in me. I felt something. At the time I had no words for the feelings. Eventually the feelings became names that were  known to me, long after. Jealousy. Anger. Resentment. Cain was my creator, it was my role to be his helper, his comforter. Not X's. But I felt helpless in the face of Cain's grief; I didn't know what to do, and X had moved so quickly and easily, pressing his hands around Cain's shoulders and leaning in. His mouth shook, and his eyes wavered without tears. He was the perfect simulacra of a human, but he was not human. I saw through him. I saw the future.

Become human, or become Maverick, but never, not once, would we Reploids truly be ourselves. Not as long as X existed, the thing in the middle.  
  
Those eyes found mine, and we exchanged a silent look over the table, over the ruins of Maverick.  
  
I saw fear in X's eyes.  
  
I realized he was afraid of me.  
  
I realized that I wanted him to be.  
  
Everything changed in that moment.


End file.
